STAR COLLAPSE (v2)
by ImstillConfused
Summary: In a dark future where in a city which takes everything worth having from too many people every single day, a fifteen year old boy awakens something within him that would have been best for everyone to have been left dormant. This story is not going to end well. - A Cyberpunk AU Current arc: Prologue
1. Chapter 1

She silently counted the faded numbers on the massive obsidian complexes as her motorcycle zoomed past them. There wasn't as much smog in the Ward today, and the rays of the sun poked through the grey sky to illuminate the greenish grey patches of moss that had somehow made their way into those walls. She was in Ward XIII; each ward had six sectors, each sector had ten complexes, and each complex had a capacity for five thousand. Officially at least. Most complexes held upwards of ten, sometimes fifteen thousand people.

Every child that went to school learnt this in about fifth grade. Though she was sure that most, like her, remembered those social sciences classes with some amount of distaste. Maybe that distaste carried over into the inhabitants of the Wards as well. Surely would explain the lack of funding and the crime.

Her radio beeped again. The request message kept on playing. It was the Hero channel. For some, high profile heroes, an annoyance. For small fry like Emi Fukukado, known to some as Ms. Joke, it was her source of income. But this message was different.

"Tokyo Police looking for first responders in Ward XIII. I repeat, First Responders in Ward XIII. Radiation Hazard. Threat level maximum."

She didn't think there were many heroes in the Wards. Getting a Ward patrol was like getting the short end of the stick. Especially after they found Icarus quartered and strung up in each sector of Ward VII. But Emi hadn't really met with too much hostility so far. Leering drunks and small time quirkgangs mostly. Nothing she couldn't deal with.

She pulled her gray facemask up, turned the corner at Sector V, and took the left towards the dilapidated metro station. The sky... seemed to clear up, all of a sudden. Harsh sunlight fell from what should have been a gray sky.

It had every right to be. It wasn't like the Sun ever really showed up in the Wards. Maybe it judged the poor differently. They all had their biases, why should the sun be any different?

She pulled up near the cordon with the holographic tape and the HAZMAT suited police, as the thought struck her. Her calling was wasted as a hero. She should have been a poet instead. A hipster at any rate. She had a Masters in English Literature, and all she did with it was the shitty puns for her hero shtick.

Sansa, hand off his assault rifle, greeted her with an arm raised. She thought his voice sounded funny, muffled under the HAZMAT gear.

"Might as well turn around now, Joke, unless you wanna joke the radiation away."

She considered it, or made a show of considering it at least.

"Hey, I got one for you. Wanna hear a joke about Radioactive Isotopes?"

The other cop on guard sighed, exasperated. She didn't know him, or couldn't recognise his voice.

Sansa rubbed the back of his yellow helmet with an orange glove.

"Go ahead." He said.

"Sorry," she grinned, "It just decayed."

A moment of deadpan silence, and then they both groaned.

"Sometimes," Sansa sighed, "I wonder why you haven't gotten more popular. Then I remember. It's mostly the puns.

Ouch. That stung.

"Hey, I'll have you know I was Rank One Thousand Seven Hundred Eighty Six on the last poll."

"And what were you on the poll before that?" It was the other cop, relaxing a bit more, already pawing at his crotch. While she found the display pretty gross, she could understand it. HAZMAT suits were pretty swampy.

"One Thousand Seven Hundred Eighty Seven?" She supplied innocently as she got off her motorcycle to wonder if she would have to find a better opportunity for a payday than this or if the cops had an extra HAZMAT suit she could borrow.

She moved closer to the Cordon, and she could already feel blasts of heat from whatever was back there. Something big was going on. Maybe she could pay off a few loans with this.

"So, Sansa, how's your wife?" She asked. Sansa had gotten married five weeks ago. She couldn't make it to the reception but she heard the food was great! There was real fish! Not many people could afford real fish in this economy.

Before he could answer, a familiar voice, albeit muffled, rang out from behind her.

"She ran away," Detective Naomasa Tskuauchi said in his usual deadpan delivery, "With a guy who had a human face."

She turned around. Naomasa had a HAZMAT suit on, and from the looks of it another in his hands.

Sansa's laughter boomed. She had never quite gotten used to how it sounded like something between a cat hacking and a man laughing. She never said that to his face though, it wasn't like he could help it.

"He's just salty," Sansa explained, "that he got suspended."

Tsukauchi, model cop that he was, got suspended? That was a bit of a shock, though it would explain why he lacked a weapon.

Tsukauchi sighed.

"Hey Sansa, tell her why I got suspended. I think Joke would be delighted to know."

That killed the whole mood, then and there. And Emi felt like at a party with people she didn't know talking in code and inside jokes she wasn't privy to, at least she was going to know now.

"So Joke, you know there were a bunch of protests planned for the day right. About the new Quirk law?"

She nodded. The new law entailed revoking ninety percent of all quirk licenses. That meant only heroes and emergency services got to keep theirs. People were...none too happy about that. The official word from the Association was to stay neutral. She found it awfully convenient that it happened when All Might was away due to his international obligations, but it was her duty as a hero to stay neutral.

"So uhh- there was a big protest here, at the Subway station. Chief of Police-" Sansa stopped. She could feel the edge on his voice. The shame and the barely suppressed rage.

"I am not supposed to tell you this but the Chief ordered the Psychosquad to break it up. Unofficially." All of that came out as a sort of rushed admission. "Tsukauchi got suspended for punching the Deputy Chief."

Two emotions came over Emi. One, boiling hot anger. Two, pride at being Tsukauchi's friend. The Psychosquad: A pseudoMilitary force the Police were supposed to use only to combat domestic terrorism.

She had to fight to contain herself from shouting, so her voice came out a little rough and muted. "And they nuked the Subway?"

Tsukauchi shook his head, his shoulders slumped.

"No," he said, "Put the suit on and come take a look for yourself."

* * *

Izuku heard the first shot, then the screams cutting into his playlist. He pulled his earbuds out just as the people began to riot.

Someone shoved at him. Hard to get a voice in the crowd. His mom, where was his mom? And then the world seemed to slow down just for him, he could see her now. She was close to the entrance.

He could see red flashing visors and smoke trails from gunbarrels too.

The shots rang out again, tore through everything in their way. They riddled her with bullets.

His mom screamed as her blood sprayed. All over him, all over the crowd. He couldn't move. There was only numbness in him. And searing hot, white rage.

Then everything went white.

* * *

Emi approached the Subway station with some trepidation, the constant, ever rising _tick tick tick tick _of her Geiger counter warning her as the waves of heat rolled off the cracked concrete and the bleached, graffiti stained walls.

What the actual fuck was going on here?

Tsukauchi was silent this whole time.

The Subway entrance was blasted open, and the walls scarred and stained. This was way, way above her paygrade. Why was she here again?

The most disturbing thing in all of it was the screams. The heatwaves brought a boy's voice on the wind. Hoarse, angry roaring.

_What the fuck?_

She got her answer soon enough, as soon as he descended the first set of stairs, her counter climbed from a steady _tick tick_ to a maddening _ticktickticktickticktick_ that almost brought her heart up to her throat. She saw it then, some hundred metres from where she stood.

A fifty meter circle of white ash, surrounded by another circle of boiling, molten fluid. And blinding white light. The heat waves almost bowled her over, and even through the thick suit it charred her down to her soul.

A screaming boy with knelt at ground zero. His eyes gleamed like stars, bled hues of orange and white. His skin was chapped and broken and blindingly white light bled out from inside. She thought he had green hair.

And at his feet, in pristine condition lay a corpse of an older woman, green hair stained red and pale skin marred by bulletholes.

This was way, way above her paygrade. The HAZMAT suit was swampy, and she honestly wanted to go home and have a hot shower at this point. But she was also a hero, sworn to help people. No matter how hard the Association made it for her, no matter how fucked this world was, she was committed to it.

She swallowed once, tried to think of a joke for the moment, something to lighten the mood a little. She had none. Humour was as much her coping mechanism as it was her way to use her quirk.

"What happened?" She asked, her voice hoarse. Even if there was no blinking green dust or swirling heat or burning light around, her voice would have sounded the same. She was shaken.

"From what I can gather he is just some kid. Psychosquad shot up the train, looks like they- they killed his mom." Tskuauchi stopped for a moment. The half scream half roar seemed to be getting to him more than it was to her.

She'd seen some things in her life. Things she thought she could never forget. This was pretty high up in that list. In her line of work she had to be prepared for nearly everything but nothing would really prepare her for a poor kid's quirk going completely haywire and wiping out a whole subway station because the Police shot his mom for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She wiped her visor free of green blinking dust with a brush of her hand and swallowed. Though in reality, it was more like she tried and failed to swallow what felt like a knife in her throat.

"So, is there a way you can get a bomb containment chamber, a crane and three guys in heavy suits? Because I don't think I can move him."

Tsukauchi sighed in reply. He sounded close to defeat.

"I can't. Don't even know who he is — can't run an ID yet. Any word gets out, they'd kill the kid or put him in Tartarus. This is why I had to do this local. Besides." Tsukauchi stepped back a little, "I'm still suspended aren't I?"

They both chuckled dryly.

So this was technically vigilantism. If the Police couldn't call this in, neither could she. She'd be doing this for free. That is, if she could do anything in this situation at all. This whole thing was fucked and she just wanted to go home and have a warm shower at this point. And then drown in a bathtub full of whiskey. She had to get this horrifying screaming out of her head.

"I think I might need to call in a favour or two. You know Eraserhead? I think he'd be a safe bet. He's kind of a big softie."

Tsukauchi laughed at that.

"Stop laughing!" She exclaimed, cracking a grin under that hefty helmet of hers. "You got someplace the kid could go to right now?"

Tsukauchi rubbed at the back of his helmet. "Hopefully we can find his family, but worst case scenario, I can think of something. I have a...friend in a high place."

"Alright," she nodded, "Let's go outside. I have had enough of this to last me a lifetime and I need to make a call."

They walked back out silently after that, both hoping in the heart of their hearts that it wasn't the worst case scenario.

It was, in every sense of the word a worst case scenario.

Worst case scenario couldn't begin to describe it, and only in retrospect would she realise just how wrong the whole situation was.

Maybe it was the beginning of the end. But no one cared then. Who would? In a city where that took everything worth having from too many people every single day, the police firing on a subway car full of innocents was hardly newsworthy. Apathy ruled supreme in a city where a random massacre was about as unusual as the chill on a winter morning.

Maybe it was plain old irony, maybe it was destiny. 

* * *

Over his shoulder that day, Midoriya Izuku looked and saw his Black Star. It didn't shine on him. Not on that day.

The people of Neo-Tokyo didn't look over their shoulders that day. They didn't see the Black Star's shine on them.


	2. PART 1 CHAPTER 1

E

Part I: Icarus Rising.

* * *

_Icarus, son of Daedalus was he._

_Daedalus fashioned him wings of feather and wax after his own, and Icarus took his father's gift and tied them to his arms._

_Daedalus warned him to follow the path of Sophrosyne. Too high and the sun would melt his wings, too low and the surf of the sea would be as lead on his feathers._

_Icarus stretched his arms and soared. High, high and higher still._

* * *

Chapter I: FUTURE CLUB

* * *

He made a beeline for the darkened VIP section. An odd sight, but perhaps not entirely out of the question in the Nightclub dazzling with neon. He was a man in a heavy trench coat and a dragon mask, and his eyes gleamed like emeralds.

He stopped in front of the third seat from the left, eyeing the people on it. Rough, bloodshot eyes of a killer, synthetic hair in a sensible black, and skin too shiny to be real. No one could really fix that ugly mug though. Wore chains and bracelets of gold, and half naked women of various dispositions draped around him, like ornaments.

"Masato Kubo?" He asked.

The women took a single glance at him. Cloudy eyes. Pretty drugged. That made it easier for what was to come next.

Masato Kubo had wild eyes but a relaxed posture. Hadn't regarded him as a threat. Not yet.

"Yes, what do you want?"

Dragon exhaled. Black smoke billowed from his nostrils. The muscles in his throat contracted and heat pooled in his mouth.

He let loose.

The scorched skull sizzled and boiled as deadened flesh and synthetic skin sloughed off with a wet, squelching _plop_ onto the table top. The women were too drug-addled to respond initially, but then one caught a whiff of the sickeningly sweet burned flesh and plastic and emptied the contents of her stomach on the corpse.

Dragon turned, exhaling a long trail of black smoke through his nostrils. His enhanced emerald green eyes turned once to take a long, good look at the camera. And then they alerted him to the suits running at him.

Black and red suits, some katanas, at least one submachine gun. 25 paces.

Some screaming, the digital Geisha overhead glitching as the glint of a rifle scope peeked from behind the panel. His Yakuza entourage, 20 paces.

He reached into his trench coat and fumbled against the holster. Really didn't look like he could before he got shot, not without some help. Mentally he fired off the command, and the boosters jolted in sparks down his spine, up his arms and to his fingertips. They blazed all the way through. Suddenly the world multiplied in depth and colour.

Up above him he could make out the text through the glint of the rifle scope, its reticle pointed at his chest. 10 paces on his left, a Yakuza lifted his Katana high over his head, its cerulean edge reflected the red of the Geisha projection.

The checkered plastic of the grip flew into his wrist fast enough to draw blood. He turned, brought the pistol up in a forty five degree angle. The world slowed to a halt, the checkering on the trigger bristled against the tip of his forefinger. He pulled.

He could make out every single pore on the Yakuza's face in the muzzle flash. The shockwave and recoil pushed against his shoulder, the gas trails shimmered in red and blue neon light. In the background, there was likely screaming. A lot of screaming, but the drugs in his system had filtered it all out.

Like a cat he turned. Without even looking his firearm was in line with his shoulder and its muzzle pointed at another Yakuza. He pulled the trigger again. Another deafening boom rang out.

The only thing he felt was the recoil jerking his wrist and the sharp rush of adrenaline.

The sniper in the booth took his shot, and his reflexes moved him before he could. He spun on his heel and brought up the gun even before his brain had registered it. He squeezed the trigger.

With a snap, he fell to the floor. A blade came his way, he rolled.

Another swing, and he could see the cerulean blade cast trails in the air as it chopped at his head. With a herculean effort, he rolled to his knees and opened his mouth. The muscles in his throat contracted and the feeling of liquid fire in his bones doubled, tripled quadrupled in seconds as twin streams of flame began from his throat and joined at the tip of his tongue. He pushed it onward.

They shrieked with immediate pain. There was Trigger in the concoction he had injected himself with. His flames were scalding hot now, even to his own tongue. Crackles of burning hair and melting skin assaulted his senses, but the adrenaline in his system kept him going.

He kicked at an approaching knee, pushed the muzzle against a falling gut and pulled the trigger. Once twice thrice. Glassy eyes, flecks of saliva and pained moans.

He kicked the corpse off, right into another. The submachine gun had a clear bead on him now.

His world crawled to a halt as the angry rat-tat-tat of the submachine gun rattled, filling his eyes with a yellow glow. He ducked, somehow. His bones and muscles complained every step of the way, but they obeyed.

The steady stream of fire followed him as he rolled and ducked into the rushing crowd. The entire fight had only been three minutes, and the submachinegun was dry now.

Through the parting crowds his reflex brought his hand up one last time. The polished gleam of steel scattered the pixels of the broken LED Geisha. He pulled the trigger once more, and the last Yakuza fell as if the ground was kicked out from under him, brains spilling out from a hole where his eye used to be.. 

* * *

..._The nation is shocked after a brutal altercation between a lone gunman and members of the Hassaikai Zaibatsu here at the ION Nightclub in Neo-Tokyo's Business District. Six Hassaikai security guards were killed trying to subdue the gunman after he used some kind of fire breathing quirk to immolate Mr. Masato Kubo, who was killed on the spot. Mr. Kubo was a retired Sergeant of the PS-CHOS, or the Paramilitary Security Coordinated Homeland Offense Squad, colloquially referred to as the Psychosquad. Mr. Kubo had formally resigned his position two years ago, shortly after the Quirk law changes in the National Diet, after allegations that the PS-CHOS was involved in several uses of lethal force against protestors. These allegations were later dropped after Neo Tokyo Police Force formally registered a case against the Black Hand, an Extreme Right Wing terror organisation fighting for the formation of a Quirkless nation. It is not known what reason the gunman had to assassinate Mr. Kubo, but speculation online has cited personal vengeance. We can only speculate on the reason however, and the killer is still at large. Mr. Kubo leaves behind his wife and two daughters, who are distraught at their father's demise. The Neo Tokyo Police Force has refused to comment on the situation however, but our sources tell us that Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi has been assigned to the case. This has been Jessica Tran with NTNC, we shall be back shortly after a quick word from our sponsor, Yaoyorozu Tech, stay tuned…_

* * *

The whole situation was getting on his nerves.

He hadn't been inside of a school in two years, but he did need to finish school to apply to UA High's Hero course, because of course he was going to do that. Soon enough he'd be seventeen years old, and then soon after that he could go follow his dreams.

The homeroom teacher was a portly woman with a kind smile, one he didn't trust from the second he laid eyes on her. Smiles were often deceiving, and kindly appearances always hid people who wanted something from him. Whether that would be like one of his myriad of experiences from before, or some freshly minted torment, he didn't know.

But he wasn't about to let them do it to him. He was no longer the short, scared little kid from before. He was older, and more importantly, larger and much, much stronger now. He was sure he had the most powerful quirk in the room, and it didn't matter whether the room was polished marble and nicely finished faux teak desks full of naive rich kids of Corporates and Superheroes, or it was his old middle school of scratched granite and linoleum, plastic and bent metal desks and Bakugou Katsuki's ugly mug on them.

But that said, he had expected a different sort of energy. He was told he would be placed in a class of hero hopefuls with a powerful quirk. That usually meant people who regarded others as the dirt below their nails, or people who thought of everyone as a competitor. The former he wouldn't have to deal with if he kept his head down, but it would be the latter that he'd have to contend against. But from his experience, they usually ended up being unfocused.

But it was a strange thing, being mentally prepared for one thing, only to be greeted with something completely different. The kids in his class were very dopey faced boys and gossipy girls. Kids of Corporate types maybe, a few ministers, he could see those. But none had the energy he was prepared for. No, it was downright..mundane.

The homeroom teacher-what was her name again, Obo? Miss Obo looked at him through her half rimmed round glasses and small nose, expectantly or quizzically still the remains of a broad beaming smile through her meticulously nice and polished teeth. But then she shifted, looking a little disappointed perhaps. His behavioural analysis tutor would be proud.

She smiled at him again, this time in a way that didn't reach her eyes, and turned to the class.

"Oh he's a little shy, but he's the new student to this class. Everyone, please welcome Akira Betsuya."

Izuku Midoriya groaned inwardly. Of course he was stuck with that stupid name. He was in witness protection, but unofficially.

Stiffly he raised one hand in greeting. The rest of the class looked straight at him, deadpan. This was going just _great_. Whatever, all he needed was the school gym so he could work out. And in fact, he was promised just that. One year in a controlled environment for him to train his quirk on his own, maybe find a few other sparring partners to practice with, provided he flipped through the textbook maybe once every few weeks, he'd be able to pass the final exams without a hitch..

Without waiting on any other ceremony, he walked straight to the corner, picked the desk beside the window and immediately zoned out. He wasn't required to attend classes, but he just couldn't technically head for the gym immediately, no he would need a signed permit before that. Having to sit in there and listen to a portly mid thirties woman drone on about 'first day of class' and 'how was your trip to Borneo' and 'do you think we should have a digital Sakura tree' was...a colossal waste of time and money.

Whatever, at least the rich people could afford air conditioning. His old middle school was damp and leaking water when it rained and scorching hot and swampy the rest of the time. He stared straight ahead at the board, trying to ignore the two girls gossiping about him loudly enough for him to make out that it was him they were talking about, but not loudly enough for him to make out what they said. He turned his head toward them, face bearing the nastiest, most dispassionate and dour expression he could muster. But they went on, without even noticing the object of their extremely passionate dissection.

Fuck this place, then.

His hands shot up to his face, rubbing and massaging at his temples, and after a while he became very aware of a gaze on his shoulder. Without turning his head, he glanced over at the person. It was a neko. Of course it was a neko mutant.

Neko mutations were...varied, yet they were common enough that it was something like half of all known mutants. Back in the day people used to think it was a product of research on the human genome, because catgirls were popular before the dark age, truth be told they still were pretty popular, even when most people detested mutants.

Usually nekos had other quirks too, this one had a large and blocky visor over her eyes. When she caught him looking, she turned her head quickly, and her cheeks went red with a blush.

This was going to be a very, very long day. At least it would be over as soon as he could get past this class and go off to the gym. 

* * *

He sat on a bent metal chair in front of a rickety old table in the verandah of the hovel. The lone fluorescent bulb swung back and forth, back and forth. A bottle of tequila and a large handgun sat on the table in front of him, and due to a lack of better things to do he tracked the movement of the lightbulb through its stainless steel finish.

A trickle of blood escaped his nose, trailing on his upper lip and dripping onto his shirt. Absentmindedly he dabbed the blood away.

He pulled the scratched old shot glass close. Today's tequila was cheap, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Beggars so poor as to be living in an actual slum, as opposed to slumming it in a megacomplex in some Ward were definitely not allowed to be choosers. No, they were supposed to be taking it lying down or maybe bending over and welcoming it. Somewhat, he supposed, like the Uraraka woman in the hovel behind his.

Dragon put the tablet on top of his tongue and washed it down with a swig of Tequila, so far immersed in his musing he completely forgot about having the shot glass at all. But that was fair because the acid immediately made the tequila going down his throat feel like a trail of liquid petrol, leaving only swirly patterns and a trail of flames. Behind the screens of his eyelids, he could almost see the kaleidoscopic purple and pink, and that almost blocked out the screaming, the wife beating and the odd jumped up punk shooting his AK into the air. Yup, way better than a syringe cocktail or a hypoderm of Trigger. He just hoped his dealer wouldn't cut his with heroin.

He slipped into a pleasant dream of pink elephants balancing on beach balls and the Digital Geisha from the Nightclub come alive to sing just for him.

And like all good things in life the pleasant dream slipped the moment a footstep creaked on to the broken planks of what passed for the landing step on to his verandah, and without even looking he pointed his handgun at the source of the sound. Click, the safety was off. He opened his eyes.

Looking scared out of her skin, sporting a black eye and bleeding considerably from a cut on the side of her head it was none other than the saddest person in existence, Uraraka's daughter. What was her name again? Ochoka? Ochako? Something along those lines.

He lowered his gun. Goddamn it he had to stop taking drugs sooner or later, he was almost about to shoot a kid. Still, he was pretty annoyed.

"Look," he said, trying to find a way to command his legs to stand up, "word to the wise, don't sneak up on a man like that."

Ochako Uraraka nodded gingerly. So would he if he was bleeding like that.

"I didn't mean to disturb ya like that, real sorry mister."

Dragon finally managed to subjugate his legs, so he sat up. The psychedelic was wearing off, and the state of the kid was kicking in.

"Nevermind that, what happened to your head."

"I- fell." Ochako lied through her teeth.

"You fell huh?"

Goddamn kids. He stood up and brushed his pant legs, tucked the gun into his belt behind him. Wasn't the safest way to carry but he didn't always want to visibly carry a holster on him at all times. Swiftly he grabbed at the arm she was tactically hiding behind her back. She winced immediately. It was a bruise. A bruise in the shape of five fingers.

"The fall do that too?"

She didn't say anything, but her tears started streaming down her face.

God fucking damn it. He shouldn't be getting involved. Not after pulling something big. Every little movement he made would put him at risk. Would lead people to him. He wanted to be noticed, not found. But if he sat here and watched a girl who would be his son's age, were he alive, suffer through _this_, he couldn't call himself a man.

No, then he actually would be just a dragon.

"Stand here," he said, trying to control his voice as much as he could.

He went inside to look for a disinfectant and a wad of cotton. Poor kid. He didn't know a whole lot about her family background, but he knew the gist of it. A poor hard working man gets caught in a special loan because of some glib snake's honeyed words, signs a document with hidden conditions he has no capability of paying back without reading the fine print, business sinks because investors pull out, the middle man pull out to save their bottom line and the working man gets fucked over. Then the bank buys out his debt and now he works 20 hours a day hopped up on god knows what kind of drugs, gets nutrient paste to eat and an impossible loan to pay back, and his wife sells her body to put food on the table while his little girl gets beat up by pimps and pushers. Fucking pathetic.

Kids like these? No future. No matter the talent they had, all of them ended up in the same hole and made the same mistakes their parents did. It was a vicious cycle. A bullshit vicious cycle of greed and bad decisions. He really, really shouldn't get involved.

But then he thought about the times he sees her take photographs of the sunset, whatever sunset this hopeless little cluster of hovels get. Like a bright ray of sunshine in a hopeless muddy hole. He knew it was futile to get caught up in, that perpetuating cycles of violence got him deeper and deeper into holes, but he couldn't let something like that be snuffed out so soon.

Besides, he had to move from this hovel anyway. Life as a beggar for a few weeks was all well and good, but now it was time to do something fresh anyway. He grabbed the suppressor and the subsonic ammo he had in the cabinet, along with the gauze, cotton and disinfectant.

When he came back outside she was vacantly staring at the holes in the floor panels, almost jumped out of her skin again at his approach. Wordlessly he tore off a piece of cotton and dabbed disinfectant on it. She whimpered as he dabbed away at the dried blood covering the cut.

As he moves on the Gauze he thinks it was the proper time to ask her about it.

"So, which lowlife pushed you?"

She stiffened immediately. She knew what was coming and what he was going to do. She'd seen the box of bullets.

"I-Look I, I don't want no trouble mister. I didn't-"

"You didn't what?" He pressed on, both metaphorically and literally as he pushed a freshly disinfected piece of cotton at the wound on her forehead.

"I didn't come to you for help-I just had to get out of there."

He stopped her.

"Look, a man far wiser than me told me once upon a time, that you do not go looking for trouble. Trouble comes looking for-now hold that gauze there, let me wrap it around. Ah, I know it hurts, but hold it there, anyway-trouble comes looking for you."

He finished wrapping the gauze around her head. He didn't have any pins so he tied it into a bad knot.

"Now if you stand up to trouble, or let it walk all over you, is up to you. But what measure is a man who cannot stand up for himself and others around him?"

She stayed silent, and tears trickled down her cheeks once more.

He moved away to where his boots were. Methodically he was lacing them up. He could do it faster but he did need her to make up her mind. Nevermind that she was a kid, there was no age requirement to growing a backbone.

"I'll ask again." He said, "Who was the lowlife that pushed you."

"DV. It was DV. DV pushed me against the wall."

Ah, so that was the issue. DV was the name of the ugly son of a bitch that owned this slum. Whether it was a nickname because he looked as round as a DVD or if it was some abbreviation he didn't know.

"And why did he do that? Out of the blue?"

She sniffled.

"He, he wanted to- he tried to- he tried to touch me."

The tone in her voice made quite clear what kind of touch DV wanted.

Dragon was a man who had seen it all, when it came to despicable things that people did. Hell, it wasn't like he was a saint either. But some things, they were still capable of feeling like mercury was boiling in his veins.

Shakily he reached into the half torn breast pocket of his loose shirt, drawing a pack of cigarettes. He tried to focus, but his hands were shaking. He took one bent, crumpled cigarette out of the pack and held its tip close to his mouth. He contracted the muscles in his throat, but only a little. A faint, pretty mild breath of fire, and the cigarette was lit. He put it in his mouth shakily and puffed.

The rancid tobacco assaulted his throat, and if it wasn't already used to fire and smoke, he was pretty sure he would cough.

"Mister, you shouldn't smoke." She said, and then when he glanced over at her, it seemed like she bit her tongue.

"I know." He said.

Other than being a slumlord gangbanger piece of shit, DV was now trying to do heinous things to kids. Well, time to pay his rent then. In bullets.

He drew his handgun and pulled the slide back so he could check the chamber. He knew it was loaded, but all the same it was a force of habit. He brought the suppressor up the muzzle and slid the grooves in the right place, then it was just a matter of threading it on.

"Stay here," he said, "and lock the door from the inside. I won't be very long. Don't open the door for anyone else."

She nodded, still pretty gingerly. Poor girl had to be feeling dizzy, she had lost quite a bit of blood.

Dragon exhaled small puffs of cigarette smoke from his nose as he readied the muscles in his throat. It was time to get back to work. 

* * *

"_Mom?" He asked, tears in his eyes ran free in the darkened room with the holo display of red fire and orange smoke against All Might's theatrics. It was the clip of his Japanese debut, some twenty years or so old and viewed billions of times. He himself had added at least a thousand views to it_

_His mom cried against his shoulder. Her tears made the shirt around his shoulder damp._

"_Mom, can I be a hero?" he asked, between sniffles._

_All she said was, "I'm so sorry Izuku."_

_He looked at her face, and it was but black mist._

* * *

"_Wake up Izuku, there's work to be done."_

Work?

But he was going to apply to a new school wasn't he?

He looked outside the window, but he couldn't see the obsidian glean of the megabuildings or the glittering shine of pale blue skyscrapers.

There was a black miasma outside. A thick black fog that knocked against the window with its wispy black curls.

Stitcher blasted in his eardrums. 'Axe and Sword' it was. Some kind of old Viking Technometal revival album. Bodies pushed and shoved against him, but it wasn't the usual kind of pushing and shoving you expected in a subway train during rush hour.

It was different. Feverish almost.

He could make out details he hadn't before. Like how the plastic housing on the lights inside bulged outwards, like the sour tone of too many cigarettes on a Salaryman's breath. Like the perfume failing to hide the sweat and the shame and the runover mascara on the scared looking woman on the far side, lowcut dress and NUskin patches failing to hide the bruises and burns on her chest.

Where?

Where was his mom, what was going on?

"Izuku?" a voice called out, muffled within the crowd but unmistakably her.

There she was!

He had to get to her.

But why did his feet feel like they were bolted into the ground?

The crowd pushed up against him. Someone ran their fingers through his hair. He had- He had felt those hands somewhere, before. He just couldn't place where.

"Izuku?"

His mom called again, she sounded panicked now.

The crowd pushed up against him. There was a sea of bodies now, all pushing against him, crushing him. He had to-

"IZUKU!"

This time it was a scream. She sounded scared, disturbed. He had to-

Izuku shoved back against the crowd, and the gears turning the world crawled to a halt. He pinwheeled now to get his arms free, and the crowd dissolved into the black miasma from outside.

He opened his mouth to scream, but he couldn't. The thick fog was everywhere. It crushed his chest and squeezed his windpipe. He had to-

He had to-

Stitcher screamed in his ears, the sound scratchy and out of tune, like a recording in a horror movie.

"GET FREEE-"

The black fog parted and Izuku found himself at the bottom of an Obsidian abyss. A pale blue light was somewhere above him, but somehow he had the feeling there was no way he could reach it..

"Izuku?"

His mom's panicked voice echoed from somewhere.

He had to- to-

Izuku tried clambering on to the walls of the abyss, but he couldn't make a foothold.

"Hey," a voice called out, "it's of no use."

That voice! That was his voice.

Izuku turned.

He- or another him sat cross legged on the Obsidian floor. He looked different. Larger, bulkier, with a twisted and nasty smile and a dark gleam to his green eyes.

"It's no use, you see. We are already dead."

He reached with his hand to his forehead, where the bone had given way and the flesh was a soft crater. Shakily he drew his hand back from the edge of the crater, where he could feel shards of his own bone poking at him.

And Izuku saw. A bullet hole in his forehead. Crimson blood dripped onto the tattered Gakuran, and its buttons were the same brass gleam as the bullet that spun in his head.

* * *

"_Emi just- lets just address the Elephant in the room here."_

_Emi shook her head, this was the bad part._

"_Quirkless. His file says quirkless."_

_Tsukauchi took a drag of his cigarette._

"_How did a quirkless kid do_ _**that**__?"  
_

* * *

Izuku stood at the edge of the school's roof, watching as hordes of rich kids lost deep in conversation made like ants out of the gate to where their chauffeurs waited to carry them into rich black sedans with neon accents that made towards their rich estates.

The other, much sadder and much richer kids took a left towards the helipad, where bodyguards with eVTOLs and helicopters awaited.

His own ride out of the madhouse hadn't gotten here yet, and he had some time to burn which he would love to without being gawked at or gossiped about, so the roof it was. And what a sad roof it was.

He took one glance at the never ending rows of skyscrapers in Downtown, and towering Obsidian monoliths in the old town. East from there, even though he couldn't see it from here, close to the city walls were the slums.

eVTOLs and hovercars littered the sky and the purple and neon green of the cityscape blotted out the sun. From the ground sometimes you couldn't even see it was there. This city was a hellscape.

West from the Downtown was the Residential district, and the towering, almost megalithic Mightcorp Hospital. The operation should have been completed by now, and he wished he was there, instead of here, wasting his time.

Oh well, nothing he could do before his ride got here anyway.

And then a sudden hand on his shoulder almost made him fall off the roof. 

* * *

Dragon stood in front of the dilapidated facade of what passed for the Uraraka house. Extremely aggressive ghetto rap assaulted his ears from within the building, and even the door reeked of the cheapest of booze. Summed up, a _wonderful_ place to raise a teenage daughter.

He glanced quickly over to both sides. Not a soul in sight. Good, that made for less complications.

He slammed his fist against the wooden door. It creaked against its hinges with the force. One, twice, thrice. His elbow he tucked into his side, pistol pointed straight at the door. Angry grumbling from behind the door, his movements sluggish.

Dragon fired off the mental commands as the door opened, and the rush of battle took him.

One of DV's crew, Axeman, right in front. Pupils dilated and face aggressive. One hand behind waist, drawing gun. Dragon clasped his mouth with the left hand, digging into his face. The muzzle end of the suppressor _jabbed_ into the assailant's stomach.

He looked at the blood drain from Axeman's face as he pulled the trigger. Once. Twice.

_Thwip. Thwip._

Axeman's eyes were cloudy now. And afraid. The aggression was gone yet the pain hadn't caught up. Dragon could feel the front of his dirty shirt get soaked in blood. He raised the gun and pushed it against his forehead.

Axeman knew what was coming, he yelled into his hand as he struggled, and with pleading eyes he begged. No mercy.

_Thwoom_.

Bits and pieces of his brain were on the front of his shirt now, and blood had splattered on to his face. Dragon hungered for more.

He knew what this was. Too much trigger in one day. The aggressiveness was the first symptom. He had 15 minutes till he lost fine motor control, then it would be all quirk and so Dragon.

Dragon tore the shirt from his chest and threw its tattered remains on the dirty floor. He exhaled, shakily. He could see the vapour trails from his mouth as the Trigger worked in his system. If he looked into a mirror now, he knew he would see his throat and chest glowing orange, and his eyes bloodshot.

This was the first stage, then it was hallucinations, then he would black out.

This, he supposed, was Ochacko's "room". Calling it a room would be doing it too much credit. It was the living area. There was a table in the corner, an old radio corpse propping it up as its fourth leg, and a filthy, torn navy blue school bag. Her books were all unceremoniously dumped here and there. One of the walls had a maroon stain on them.

What was he here for again? Wasn't killing was it? No, it was. But he was there to kill DV.

An uncapped bottle of Vodka sat in one of the corners of the room, before the short hallway into the one bedroom this hovel had. Where DV was, with the rest of his lackeys.

He raised the bottle to his lips and chugged. Drinking Vodka like beer wasn't healthy, and it definitely wouldn't help him later, but now he needed desperately to kill the spike of high he was feeling.

He drank at least a quarter of the bottle in one go, and then he smashed it against the wall as hard as he could. It worked. He could hear the arguing from behind the door, and then a loud smack. And then the door creaked.

Dragon hid against the wall, pistol braced between his bicep and his forearm, resting in the elbow-pit, with the muzzle pointed and ready and counted the footsteps.

10 paces.

5 paces.

Moving too fast. This was Grasshopper.

Grasshopper hopped into the living space, and now Dragon was behind him. In one smooth motion he brought the gun up and pointed it at Grasshopper's neck and pulled the trigger.

_Thwoop._

Grasshopper fell face first, powerful feet kicking and hands raised to his throat to try and prevent bleeding out. Futile attempt. His blood came out of him in spurts and pooled under his head. He gurgled and rattled as the air in his lungs escaped through the gaping hole in his throat. He writhed there, and all Dragon felt was the rush of the kill. He placed one foot on Grasshopper's back and aimed the gun at his head. He pulled the trigger.

_Thwoom_.

He breathed in, shakily. The exhale was wisps of black smoke. The fire was building faster than he had anticipated. That unfortunately meant he wouldn't be able to talk much to DV. But that was an acceptable tradeoff.

He walked the ten paces to the door. Inside he could hear the shower running. That was a good thing. That meant either DV or Mrs. Uraraka was in the shower, so either way, Mrs Uraraka wouldn't be in the crossfire.

He noticed the hinges. Old, creaky and rusty. Almost falling apart. The door wasn't in the greatest condition either. Old synthetic wood was weaker structurally than normal wood. One single kick near the door hinge would break it apart.

And so Dragon kicked. And as he had expected, one good kick was all the door had in it.

It toppled over dramatically, only to greet him with a foul smelling bedroom with aggressive ghetto rap playing in it, with an even fouler smelling DV sitting on a chair that was literally on its last legs, his head mounted projector implant playing what appeared to be a an amateur recorded porno. He couldn't make out the actress' face under the haze of rage he felt at the fucker.

"Mr. Shine?" He croaked. "You killed them? You fucking psycho!"

Dragon raised his gun wordlessly.

DV eyed the shotgun resting against the dirty, unmade bed. Too far out of reach, and he was too fat and lethargic to make a dive for it. He was made. He knew that. Dragon took pleasure in the fact that he knew that.

Dragon waited for the inevitable blubbering, the begging, the offers. To his credit, DV at least didn't do that.

He opened his mouth. The fire was scalding to his tongue. Black smoke wafted through his nostrils. 

* * *

Izuku sat on the ground, head still reeling from the fright of his life. The girl loomed over him, with a mortified looking face and perplexed eyes. This school and its students were going to get him killed sooner or later. First they stare at him and giggle about him behind his back, and now one of them almost made him fall off the roof.

He took one glance at her. School uniform with the blazer and shirt tied up under her sizable bust to expose her midriff. Skirt was slightly shorter than what appeared to be the standard and her hair was tied back in a ponytail.

He hoped she hadn't caught him staring.

"Are you alright?"

She spoke English, and with what seemed to be some sort of a pleasant, mildly sophisticated accent, or without messing up the 'l' and the 'r'. Her voice itself was measured, as was her face.

He knew he was of suspect judgement when it came to girls, especially those his age, but he thought she was very pretty.

"Yeah, umm," He stammered, wondering what to say, caught proverbially with his pants down, deep in thought. On one hand he wanted to chew her out, on the other he was immediately suspicious of her, and then on the last hypothetical hand, she was very pretty, and he was a hormonal teenager.

She offered him her hand. He took it. She was surprisingly strong. At least strong enough to help him back on his feet. The skin on her palm was surprisingly soft. She took care of herself..

She smiled, and tilted her head slightly. He was taller than her, though not by a lot.

"You're Akira Betsuya right? My name is Momo Yaoyorozu. Miss Obo asked me to talk to you, because you spent the entire day on your own."

He almost scoffed. That was his luck. First time a pretty girl wanted to talk to him, and it was because the teacher asked her to.

And not just any pretty girl. The scion of Yaoyorozu Corp. The richest person in Japan when she inherited the estate. He might have been from a different social circle, earlier in his life, but he knew that the biggest fish ruled. She was the biggest here, in a world of the one percenter elite children, and that meant she was the queen bee. This was some prank or some bad joke, and he wasn't sure he wanted a part of either. And Miss Obo? A likely story, or complicit in whatever bad joke they had planned.

"So uhh, you're my school mandated friend now?"

She frowned. That was probably the wrong thing to say if he wanted to be her friend, but he didn't, so that was alright by him.

"Well, not mandated. If you don't want me to be, you can just say so."

She looked offended. Either it was genuine, or daddy dearest had gotten her some great acting lessons.

He straightened his shoulders and shook off the feeling that he was making a mistake.

"I don't know what you want from me," He said, looking her in the eye and tracing what appeared to be hurt, "But that outcome is more than okay for me."

She stared back into his eyes, meeting his hostility with a keen inquisitive gaze. What she was looking for, he didn't know.

After a while her posture relaxed.

"I see now," She said, smiling. "Think I understand you better now. We don't have to be friends and frankly, we don't even know each other. How about a training partner then?"

"What? So you can get someone to beat me up in the gym?"

She smiled, undeterred by his accusation. Though he noticed the smile was gone from her eyes. Some sort of '_I got you now' _ look. That annoyed him, a little. She didn't know him, didn't understand. All she did was make an assumption about him.

"I don't need someone else to beat you up." She said. And it wasn't a taunt, it wasn't to rile him up or anything like that. Her voice was flat and even. She truly believed that.

"Is that a challenge I hear?"

"Why don't you find out? Tomorrow at 9 AM, come to the gym."

Izuku considered it. He didn't know what her quirk was. But then neither did she know what his was. Blind match. Why not.

"Alright," He said, "I'm in. 9AM Tomorrow, prepare to lose. Badly."

"Sure," she smiled. 


End file.
